McHenry County Blog

Republican State Rep. Darlene Senger spoke on House Bill 332 as I dipped into the proceedings.

Gus Philpott, publisher of Woodstock Advocate, has been watching the General Assembly in action recently.

You can, too. Look here.

The last days of the session are particularly busy and often run late into the night.

And what do visitors to the chamber remark most about?

It’s staffers and legislators going from desk to desk to punch buttons when legislators are not at their seats.

In days past, that could be somewhat explained by members being on conference committees at the end of the session. Indeed, when the House chambers were remodeled, a glass walled room was constructed where such deliberations could take place within sight of one’s seat (at least if one were a House member of a conference committee).

Now the practice of ghost voting is visible on the internet.

It is made possible when members do not take their keys with them when they leave the floor.

Philpott writes of seeing it in the Senate here.

It’s not limited to the Senate.

You can read about how someone voted my switch when I was absent here.

When I was in my first year in the Illinois House–1973–one Democrat was on the floor so rarely that I thought he was a lobbyist. (Lobbyists were allowed on the floor then, at least at the edges of the floor. That was before House Speaker Bob Blair built plexiglass windows around the sides of the House chamber, earning him the nickname “Bulletproof Bob.”)

Thinking about the live broadcasting of House sessions reminds me of how I was fascinated by listening to WBBM radio on night in the late 1960′s. The station broadcast what the House was doing for several hours. It fascinated me.

= = = = =
House Bill 332, by the way does nothing. It is a place holder for some subject matter on which sponsor House Speaker Mike Madigan might want some senator to amend something.

Bills like this make it virtually impossible for the public to follow what is happening in Springfield.

That is the entire point, of course.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE TO CONDUCT ELECTION DAY MONITORING ELECTION DAY HOTLINE: (312) 469-6157

CHICAGO — The U.S. Attorney’s Office will monitor the general election in Chicago and surrounding suburbs on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced today.

As part of the monitoring effort, the office will operate a hotline for candidates or the public to call to report any complaints relating to voting.

In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorneys and other personnel will be monitoring certain polling places, while other attorneys will be available to respond to complaints as needed.

The hotline number, staffed on Election Day only, is (312) 469-6157.

Gary Shapiro

“This office has a long tradition of monitoring the polls on Election Day to help protect the integrity of the voting process,” Mr. Shapiro said. “No one who is entitled to vote should in any way be inhibited from doing so, and we stand ready to ensure a fair process for all.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heinze coordinates the office’s election monitoring efforts and subsequent investigations, if any, in consultation with the Justice Department. The Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Marshals Service will assist in this effort by following-up, if necessary, on any election fraud and voting rights complaints.

Complaints about ballot access problems or discrimination can also be made directly to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section in Washington at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767.

Federal law protects against such crimes as intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes, and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input. It also contains special protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from acts that intimidate or harass them. For example, actions of persons designed to interrupt or intimidate voters at polling places by questioning or challenging them, or by photographing or videotaping them, under the pretext that these are actions to uncover illegal voting may violate federal voting rights law. Further, federal law protects the right of voters to mark their own ballot or to be assisted by a person of their choice.

Violations of federal voting rights statutes carry penalties ranging from 1 to 10 years imprisonment and fines up to $250,000.

Defend the Vote doesn’t think Mickey Mouse should be able to vote.

Whenever folks see something on Chicago TV or in the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times, they place inordinate significance to the subject matter.

If it matters to those news deciders, then it must be important, right?

Monday the woman who called the Special Meeting of the McHenry County Republican Central Committee for the purpose of giving Tonya Franklin a chance to run as a Republican against six-term incumbent Jack Franks, got a full page and a half for her favorite cause–Defend the Vote.

In the collective memory of Illinois citizens is the 1960 Presidential election in which voters in cemeteries cast ballots.

I remember when my father moved to Illinois to take a job with the Barley and Malt Institute in 1958, he lived in a single-room occupancy hotel in Chicago before finding a rental at 100 W. Crystal Lake Avenue in Crystal Lake.

That fall, after the election, my father had forwarded to him a letter from the Democratic Ward Committeeman thanking him for voting.

Guess that means my Dad voted twice, because he certainly voted in McHenry County.

Meroni is on a tear attacking the Chicago and Cook County Democrats for not having a Republican judge present when nursing home residents vote.

Her organization has Argonne National Laboratory security experts looking at ballot security and guess what?

It’s not so secure.

The headline on a Chicago Sun-Times article is

Easy voting machine sabotage?

The headline on the internet is

Researchers break open voting machines in test of security

Democrat David Orr charges that the group “has a partisan agenda.

We don’t need no investigation by no goo-goos, seems to be the attitude of the Chicago Board of Elections and the Cook County Clerk.

No looking behind the curtain, here, folks.

Kathie Schultz

Here’s the report from McHenry County Clerk Kathie Schultz:

As of the close of voting [Saturday] there have been 3702 absentee ballots applied for. Of these 2770 were early voters.

February 2010 3233 total absentee—2409 early voters

February 2008 6235 total absentee—4720 early voters

It would flip the vote 51-49,  says computer programmer with the last name of Curtis.

The YouTube seems to be mislabeled.  It sounds like a legislative committee hearing in Ohio. At least two congressman takes part in the questioning, plus names that seem to be Ohio state senators.

The first two minutes should make any sane person quite nervous about the integrity, that is, the validity of electronic voting.

In times past, I have been told by two witnesses that a vote counting program for McHenry County was designed and used to fix a judicial race.  The guy who passed on the information and who did the programming was complaining because he had not been paid the $1,500 he had been promised.

Subsequently he was paid and has since died.

“All you have to do is set a flag,” the programmer on the video says.

Argonne's Journal of Physical Security in which Sharon Meroni's most recent article is published.

A press release from Defend the Vote:

AUDIT REPORT PEER REVIEWED AND PUBLISHED BY THE JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL SECURITY

How difficult is it for the dead to vote in Illinois?

Defend the Vote tested this question in an April 5th audit of Chicago elections. Results were complied into a report.  This report, Vulnerability Assessment and Security Audit of Election Day Polling Place Procedures for the April 5, 2011 Municipal Elections in Chicago, Illinois, by Sharon Meroni, was peer-reviewed and published by the prestigious Journal of Physical Security. The Journal of Physical Security is published by Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team.

On April 5, 2011 a group of citizens from various political parties and the tea party, equipped with audit questionnaires based on the Chicago Board of Election’s, Election Judge Training Guide, visited 239 polling places in Chicago to score the CBoE’s compliance with their own security protocols. The objective of the security assessment (the Audit) was to test enforcement of security protocols that are in place to protect our ballot.

The results were stunning: 210 precincts (91%) failed on one or more of the 11 critical security measures that were evaluated, 66% of them failed on more than one measure.  59% of the time, the CBoE failed to secure the ballot box. 

Included in the report is an analysis of the security around the memory devices and the seals that safe guard them. The stack of boxes pictured below next to the open door, contain all of the memory devices used in voting equipment on Election Day in the City of Chicago.  Each box has the memory devices for one Ward.  These boxes were observed in this location during two separate trips to the warehouse.

Roger G. Johnston, Ph.D., CPP, is head of the Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Johnston has an expertise in ballot security. In reviewing our report, he stated,

“The paper by Sharon Meroni discusses an analysis of election security in Illinois. The findings are disturbing and relevant to elections elsewhere in the country. Election integrity is a homeland security issue and we had better start taking it seriously.”

Further, Dr. Johnston found that “Chicago Board of Elections security protocols are wholly inadequate in securing the ballot.”

Defend the Vote’s mission is to empower citizens to protect elections.  Along with our growing team of partners, we believe that elections should be governed by “Best Practices”  that are based on security over the chain of custody of the ballot and all equipment related to running elections.

With the release of this report we are introducing the VAP program (Voter Auditor Pollwatcher) in Illinois.  This is the first-ever citizen run audit of elections in Illinois. Across the entire State of Illinois, voters will be trained on security for their polling place. Once trained, VAPers will be given credentials and a scoring sheet to take a snapshot of security at their poll. The audit will take about 20 minutes and pollwatchers can be credentialed for multiple polling places.  Audit sheets will be returned to Defend the Vote for analysis and further actions.

The VAP program is only one of several programs Defend the Vote is sponsoring. Defend the Vote first discovered and reported that Illinois has never audited Early Voting for accuracy of the vote. Early voting, 18% of Illinois vote, has never had the paper trail and the electronic tally reconciled. Separately, we reported that the Chicago Board of Elections employs non-citizens to run early voting locations, and that the I-9 employment verification forms for these employees are not in compliance with federal law.

The April audit was endorsed by Champion News and Jack Roeser.

For more information, please contact me at info@defendthevote.com 847 -382-1100 (office)

Sharon Meroni of Defend the Vote addresses Crystal Lake Tea Party members.

Without ballot integrity, democracy disappears.

If you can’t be sure your vote is being counted correctly and only votes of others voting legally are being counted as well, what trust would you have in the governmental system?

The Crystal Lake Tea Party met last night at the Park District’s Park Place to hear the findings of those who have investigated the situation. Below is Tea Party leader Mary Alger’s report on what happened:

“Citizens gathered at Park Place in Crystal Lake, IL and were completely drawn in by 3 speakers that presented the problems we face in election integrity and were given a solid citizen action and legal plan to fix it.

“Sharon Meroni of www.defendthevote.com tracked election processes & procedures in the City of Chicago which took her on an odyssey of adventures and discovered jaw dropping revelations.

Chicago Republican Election Attorney Steve Bolton speaks about ballot integrity problems of early voting.

“Unsecured ballots, illegal election workers, and problems with the voting machines were but a few of the problems found.

“Potentially the biggest problem is that there is virtually no auditing of early voting although Illinois law says that 5% of all votes must be audited.

“Based on many of these findings, Chicago GOP Election attorney, Steve
Boulton, spoke of his bringing several legal actions to the Chicago Board of
Elections to seek remedy.

“His letter can be found here.

“Evert Evertsen, a naturalized US citizen since 1984, knows how precious the
right to vote in this country is and has been protecting the process for
seven years by being an election judge and training poll watchers.

“These 3 speakers compelled all citizens to get involved in securing the
voting process. Sign up sheets were filled out that will allow citizens to
become highly trained and effective poll watchers, election judges, learn to
use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to seek election information and
to clean up the voter registration rolls.

“These actions will become a new focus of TEA Parties throughout the country and with www.illinoistea.org affiliated TEA Parties in our state.

“Simply put, without the sanctity and assurance of our vote being counted we lose our Republic.

One of the missions of the TEA Party is taking citizen action from the street corner and bringing it to the polling place.

“We will start in Illinois of all places to show the nation that it CAN be done starting HERE, starting NOW.”

Mary Alger
Crystal Lake TEA Party

Considering the recount in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, folks locally might be interested in the following Flag Day meeting.

A press release from the Crystal Lake Tea Party:

Who: The Crystal Lake Tea Party

What: The CL Tea Party will present a program that will empower the citizenry to ensure fair and accurate recording of the vote and to properly secure it.

Park Place at the corner of Oak and Woodstock Streets in Crystal Lake is where the meeting will be held.

Why: A non-partisan audit of voting precincts during the April 5th, 2011 election in Chicago revealed issues of non compliant ballot security procedures to be documented at an astounding 90%. Real vulnerabilities in securing the equipment and ballots were revealed and documented. Come see what was revealed and learn what you must do as a citizen to assure that your local election is without these revealed flaws. With passion and commitment from the citizenry this program can become a national campaign leading up to the 2012 election and beyond.

When: Tuesday, June 14th (Flag Day)

Time: 7-9 PM

Where: Park Place – 406 W. Woodstock St. Crystal Lake, IL

Fee: Free – donations accepted

47 people had voted in Crystal Lake’s Immanuel Lutheran Church precinct at 3 PM.

This was a "rush" for the judges at Algonquin Townshp Precinct 2.

There are 804 registered voters, so only 5.8% of the people had voted by mid-afternoon.

No one was voting absentee in person the day before the election at this County Clerk's polling place.

From the front lines of today’s substitution for war, comes this report from Mike Shorten:

“I just got back from the Rotary Building at Veterans Acres where I dropped my ballot in the box at 8:42. 

“Based on the number showing on the display, the total ballots cast at that time, including mine was 30.

“It should be noted that the polling place and the box that I dropped the ballot in serves Nunda 15, Nunda 11 and Nunda 18, which has a combined registered voter count of 2948.”

The percentage calculation is pretty easy–1$ had voted in person after the “morning rush.”

If you care to share the number voting in your polling place, please ask the number on the voter registration rolls as well, so we can calculate the percentage turnout.